


Nor Iron Bars

by dracoqueen22



Series: Wayward Sons [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2692241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoqueen22/pseuds/dracoqueen22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sunstreaker has no business being in the midst of this war but he's the one who wanted this. Tracks isn't sure how to reconcile that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nor Iron Bars

**Author's Note:**

> At the moment, I'm considering this a potential piece of the larger picture for the Wayward Sons universe. It may end up being an AU (to my AU) or it may end up being canon. Act III hasn't completely taken shape yet so I'm not entirely sure. It's a fun mystery!
> 
> Title from the line “Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage” from the poem To Althea, From Prison by Richard Lovelace

Tracks doesn't run to the brig, but it's a near thing. His spark is an anxious whirl in his chest and all he can think is that it was never supposed to be this way.   
  
Nothing has turned out the way he expected. And his little brother ending up in the brig within a few quartexes of their recruitment to the Autobots is not even the worst of it. But it's a near thing.   
  
If not for Red Alert, Tracks wouldn't even be allowed to make this visit. But their rescuer had pulled a few strings, had patted Tracks on the shoulder with an understanding flicker of his field, and had done everything he could.   
  
Three orns they'd given Sunstreaker. Three. In isolation.   
  
Tracks honestly can't say whether that will improve or worsen the situation. Whatever the situation even is. He can't understand why his brother is in trouble in the first place. Surely they are mistaken.   
  
Surely it wasn't Sunstreaker who put Huffer in the medbay while his friend cowers in his quarters, refusing to emerge.   
  
Sunstreaker is not violent. Sunstreaker couldn't hurt a turbofox. Sunstreaker has no business being in the midst of this war but he's the one who wanted this.   
  
Tracks isn't sure how to reconcile that.   
  
Disapproving glares greet him. They are easily dismissed. Tracks has led a lifetime of wealth and privilege. If he wasn't used to disapproving glares, or those of envy and hatred, he would have much thinner plating.   
  
The arresting officer's name is Streetwise. He's the one who has a smile for Tracks even as he consults his datapad.   
  
“It happens sometimes,” he says, leading Tracks down the hall, passing empty cell after empty cell. These are for Autobot prisoners.   
  
Decepticons are kept elsewhere, what few allow themselves to be taken alive.   
  
“Mechs can't adjust. They go a little, you know, glitchy.” This is accompanied by an odd hand gesture.   
  
Tracks' optics narrow. “He's my brother.”   
  
“Ah, yes, well...” Streetwise trails off, his field having the decency to flicker with apology. “This isn't punishment. Per se. It's... a chance to pull himself together.”   
  
Not punishment?   
  
Tracks wants to sneer.   
  
Then why the bars? Why the security?   
  
He pauses in front of Sunstreaker's cell and a growl of anger thrums through his engine.   
  
Why the fragging chains?  
  
“It was a necessary precaution,” Streetwise is hasty to say. “He fought.”   
  
“Of course he did,” Tracks says, vocals low. “He doesn't like to be touched.” And perhaps that is what started or all. Or maybe, Tracks wishes he could find Senator Malus and crush the mech's spark himself.   
  
“Few do.” Streetwise brushes his field against Tracks. “You have a breem.”   
  
He turns on a heel-strut and leaves them alone. Leaves Tracks to stand in front of the cell containing his brother without words to say.   
  
Sunstreaker is sitting on a low-slung berth. His shoulders are slumped, his helm hanging low, optics dim. His elbows are braced on his knees, cuffed wrists between them, hands open and nonthreatening.  
  
The bars, Tracks notices, are made of metal. They are less meant to contain as they are to remind. The brigs for the Decepticons have energy bars which can cause damage and pain.   
  
Tracks shifts his weight and cycles a ventilation. “Sun--”  
  
“I don't want to talk about it.” The response is swift and cutting, before Tracks can so much as get out his designation.   
  
Tracks sighs. “What happened?”   
  
Sunstreaker doesn't look up, doesn't shift. “It doesn't matter.” Which is as Tracks feared, all the confirmation that he hadn't wanted.   
  
“It does.” Tracks paces to the left, then the right, agitation dancing through his circuits, his field threatening to escape his control. “It does to me. Why?”   
  
He watches his little brother's hands curl into fists. In the dim of the cell, the bright gold of his armor darkens to ocher. His frame is a thing of shadows. He doesn't look like the youngling Tracks remembers laughing and climbing into Nightfall's lap. He looks like a stranger.   
  
“I will never be weak again,” Sunstreaker says, his vocals soft, but edged with something. An emotion that Tracks can't name, not without being able to read his brother's field, which he can't through the shields surrounding the cell. “And now they know it.”  
  
Finally, he lifts his helm, optics no longer dim but bright with resolve.   
  
Tracks' ventilations stall. He works his intake, but no words emerge. There is fear, certainly, not for himself, but for Sunstreaker.   
  
“You'd be proud of me, Tracks.” Sunstreaker smiles, but there's no humor in it. “I've finally found my inspiration.”   
  
“This... this is not who you are, Sunny,” Tracks says, groping for words, for understanding, and finding none of it. Sunstreaker has been a stranger to him long before their home was destroyed.   
  
Tracks had tried so hard to reach his brother. Now he hates himself for not trying harder. But he'll be damned if he loses Sunstreaker to the darkness.   
  
“And whatever this is, we'll get through it. Together.” He looks into Sunstreaker's optics, as though he can see straight through to his spark. “I promise.”   
  
Sunstreaker meets his gaze, but says nothing. He is unwavering, hands fisted. And somewhere behind it all, is the sparkling Tracks knows he failed.   
  
All he can think of is the youngling who would sit in his brightly lit sunroom, an easel in front of him, and paint the colors of the stars. The gleam of lighting on the curves of the Iacon skyline. The blur of strangers passing on the streets below.   
  
That youngling is gone. All that remains is the third-frame adult before him, dressed in battle-grade armor, armed to the denta, and energon on his hands.   
  
“Tracks.”   
  
His breem is up.   
  
Tracks cycles a ventilation and steps back from the cell, forcing himself to look away from his brother. “When will he be released?”   
  
“In three orns. After an eval.”   
  
Tracks tries not to flinch. A psych evaluation? That is surely not going to go well. Sunstreaker has always refused to seek outside help. Maybe that is part of the problem.   
  
“Thank you,” Tracks says, forcing himself to walk away. “For letting me see him.”   
  
Streetwise rolls his shoulders, cannon rising and falling. “Thank Red Alert.”   
  
“I will.”   
  
He owes the security officer a lot. More, perhaps, than Red Alert even knows.   
  
For now, however, he will have to see what he can do for Sunstreaker. He won't fail him again.   
  


***


End file.
